Down to business today in San Fran. We were in training from 9:00 until 5:00, learning about various facets of Drupal. The training session I elected to attend was was Drupal Performance and Scalability, to be presented by what was representing itself as a "Drupal dream team." I don't suppose I can argue with that assertion, since the training crew included Matt Westgate (Lullabot), Robert Douglass (Acquia, former Lullabot), David Strauss (Four Kitchens), Josh Koenig (Chapter Three), and Narayan Newton (Tag1).

"If you're here for Joomla Peformance and Scalability, you're in the right place. The first step is to use Drupal." – Matt Westgate

The morning got off to a promising start, as they started deploying fresh Rackspace Cloud instances for everyone to use. It was clear that this was going to be a very hands-on session. Unfortunately, as it seems is always the case in a hands-on workshop, everybody is moving at different paces. I felt pretty comfortable with what was being discussed, and I managed to keep up with the presenters, which meant lots of idle time. Ultimately, this led to the last hour being more of a rushed demonstration than a hands-on walk-through. I think I would've gotten a lot more out of it had everything moved at a little more steady a pace from start to finish.

That said, I did pick up a lot of good stuff from the session, and I think it's enough to get me to [finally] start migrating my own stuff off of Dreamhost and into the Rackspace cloud. Seeing some of the ways to tweak MySQL, as well as using things like APC and Varnish, and the benchmarks to illustrate how big an impact they make was pretty encouraging to me. It's was also nice to know that it's all well within my comprehension. Jeddy mentioned to me that in his SEO session they talked about how page load speed is factored into Google rankings now. I don't know how big an impact it makes, but I think that means my session was part SEO as well.

We did a quick jaunt through some of the sponsor areas, ran into some of the folks we've met at previous Lullabot workshops, DrupalCons, and Drupal Camps, and collected some preliminary swag, including some stickers, buttons, and the first t-shirts of DCSF (even if they are from Microsoft). The greatest prize of all, though: the Drupal Card Game. Not wanting to miss out, we picked up our decks early. Yes, Warfie, I snagged one for you, too.

Next step, of course, was the Apple Store for the highly anticipated iPad pick-up. Trevor and I were both disappointed to find zero inventory. Nothing. Sold out. No iPads for us. Not yet, at least. We're going to go back and try again tomorrow, as the clerk told us they are receiving shipments daily.

This evening's excursion was a trip to Pier 39 aboard a cable car and dinner at the Hard Rock Café. Along the way back Jeff suggested we check out Musée Mécanique, a museum/arcade full of antique and classic coin op machines. I didn't play a lot of arcade games growing up, but the Cruisin' USA game did bring back memories. I'm hoping we can head back for a few games on the Super Chexx this week.

Of course the day closed out with a trip to 7-Eleven for Cherry Coke. Maybe if I drink enough of the stuff this week I'll be sick of it until next year's DrupalCon. Not likely, though.

I was going to write a long and comprehensive update about our first day in San Francisco, but quite honestly, I'm too tired for that. Here are some quick thoughts on the day that was, though:

• Good: Sitting in Economy Plus instead of Economy. Better: They upgraded you for free. Best: There's nobody sitting next to you. The flight down was pretty comfortable for me.
• Five men, their luggage, and 48 bottles of beer can really weigh down a Corolla. Thanks to @jedmarc's cousin for so graciously shuttling us around all day today, and my apologies for any damage we may have inflicted on the suspension of his car.
• That shuttling was all the more appreciated after a cab ride to pier 33. Cabbies in this city seem just as crazy as every other city I've been to slightly less crazy than the maniacs on the road in Providence.
• San Francisco is a beautiful and odd city. The houses all looking tiny and squeezed together on the hills. The architecture on many of them is so ornate and beautiful as well. The colour choices on many can be described as bold.
• Quote of the day was Jeddy, referring to some palm trees downtown: "Are those real?" Clearly, Jeddy has acclimated nicely to Lethbridge.
• I feel kind of bad about not buying a souvenir from the Alcatraz gift shop. I almost got one of the replica prison cups, but opted not to. What I really wanted was a picture of cell C460 (need me to explain it?). I didn't get that, either.
• Audio tours of Alcatraz are very entertaining. I wish we had more time for things like this while we're here.
• Not enough time to visit the Apple Store today (at least not during open hours; We did scout its location late this evening). iPads will have to wait until after the training sessions tomorrow.
• Cherry. Coke. It's probably best this stuff doesn't exist in Canada anymore, because otherwise I'd probably be consuming it intravenously.

Our Drupal activities kick-off tomorrow with the training sessions. I'll be doing a Performance and Scalability workshop, an area where I have much to learn. And for now, it's time to recharge my batteries for tomorrow. Good night, all.

Lost @jedmarc and @huxmeister going through customs. Found Jeddy. Now we'll have a beer and wait for Mark to catch up. 1:15 until takeoff.

Departing from home and enroute to #DrupalCon San Francisco in minutes.

Another evening, another API tinkered with. Time for bed.

Trying out Posterous, since apparently it's all the rage.